Every leader is a communicator

Do you want to hire and lead the best team? Get funded? Forge strong bonds with customers? Outplay your competition? Lead your market with a powerful point of view? You will do none of these things alone, which means you must communicate. You cannot scale without being an effective leader/communicator.

My Six Things Every Great Communicator Does methodology is a fantastic approach to help you prepare for any kind of talk - internal, external, large or small. But an effective leader/communicator isn’t just thinking about stages. She brings the right mindset and behaviors to every interaction, every day. A leader is always a leader/communicator.

Here are Six Essentials for Every Leader/Communicator:

You respect the power of communication
You accept that being a leader/communicator IS your job. You invest energy in mastering this essential skill because . . .
You know that the words you say and the things you do are the tools to drive the outcomes you must achieve

You are the ‘Chief Repeating Officer’
You embrace repeating yourself. You know that not everyone will get it the first time you deliver your message. Or even the sixth.
You know that consistency reassures your team, customers and investors, while a constantly-changing story does not.
You see that repetition may be super boring, but repairing misperceptions is worse.

You put your audiences first
You use the Who What What table to elucidate what your audience needs.
You are as transparent as it is responsible to be, because information empowers everyone to make better decisions.

You master your channels
You realize that external comms are internal comms and vice versa. Your teams will read everything that gets written about your company. Your all hands deck or strategy email may be leaked. You plan accordingly.
You experiment, you adapt. Only three customers downloaded your 14-page white paper on the new strategy? You try a two-minute video instead.

You listen
You’re open to the better idea as you create your content and your strategy for delivering it, because you know that you don’t know what you don’t know.
You take in and learn from the tough feedback when you miss the mark. You accept internal and external advice and coaching.

You know and manage yourself
You are clear-eyed about your strengths and weaknesses as a leader/communicator.
You manage your expectations. You know that not everyone will see what you see or agree with you, especially at first. Nevertheless, you persist, communicating with grace, patience, and good humor.

When you embrace these essentials you’ll be miles ahead of other leaders who are lost in the fog, incapable of understanding why no one is following them.

Next time, Six Things Effective Leader/Communicators Never Do. That’ll be fun!